[Marxism] The Housing Question

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

In a salon.com interview Alison Rogers, the author of “Diary of a Real 
Estate Rookie,” is asked, “Why are we so fascinated by real estate?” She 
answers:

"It’s a sport. It’s like a way of watching baseball where we can see the 
standings. It’s voyeurism and gossip and social standing and 
architecture and beauty."

That is why the New York Observer’s real estate section has become one 
of the paper’s most attention-gathering sections. The paper was once 
published by Arthur Carter, the insurance magnate who used to own the 
Nation Magazine, who had an obvious interest in gossiping about the 
left, including the Nation Magazine’s Eric Alterman who was described in 
an Observer article as having a “brainy-little-kid quality, with large 
fish-like eyes behind glasses.”

That tradition continues under the new owner Jared Kushner, a Zionist 
with connections to the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher sect in–oddly 
enough–the real estate articles of Max Abelson who reported on July 10th 
that the leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, a couple by the name of 
Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters, just sold their West Village loft for 
$1.8 million. Abelson writes:

"If bow-tied, cigar-mouthed Republicans can have nice seven-digit, 
six-room co-ops, don’t a few old Manhattan communists deserve 
multi-million-dollar real estate, too?

"A two-bedroom loft at 380 West 12th Street, a 109-year-old building on 
a cobblestone block by the Hudson River, was sold by American socialist 
leaders Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters. Their buyers, Sony BMG Music 
Entertainment vice president Ole Obermann and his fiancée, Stephanie 
Jakubiak, paid $1,872,500."

In analyzing the significance of all this on the SWP mailing list on 
Yahoo, Richard Fidler pointed out that this was just a case of senior 
party members enjoying a customary perk:

"As I recall, the SWP, looking ahead to their retirement years, 
purchased condominium apartments that were inhabited by senior staff 
comrades. In my days in New York, in the mid-1970s, there were a number 
of older comrades living in such condos on the Lower East Side. These 
were comfortable but not luxurious apartments in modest high-rise 
buildings, typical working-class accommodation in that city. But, as I 
understood it, they belonged to the party, de facto, even though the 
title may have been registered in the names of individuals."

I once visited some of these “senior staff members” at their apartment 
in Chelsea, no doubt paid for by my dues. It belonged to resident 
philosopher George Novack and Evelyn Reed and was not far from my studio 
apartment in the West 20s. As I recall, it was a cozy one-bedroom that 
would probably go for $2700 per month today. Evelyn made us watercress 
sandwiches and gin-and-tonic and we gossiped about personalities in the 
Trotskyist movement of the 1930s, like James Burnham. I felt like I had 
stumbled into Dorothy Parker’s round table at the Algonquin Hotel.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/the-housing-question/

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism